PISTEUO! It's a GIFT.

It’s a GIFT from Scripture given 243 times from God’s heart to yours and mine. It's a three-in-one word, meaning “to believe, to trust, to hope.”

It's pronounced “pist-yoo-o."

It's become my life word. I want to live the gift.

I practice every day to do it.

DO  believe and trust and hope.

I look for it. It's changing me. It's changing my life. It's changing my thought processes. it's changing my priorities. It's changing even my health; because faith heals trust issues, and that brings peace where stress, pressure, and anxiety has taken up too much space for much too long, and taken away too much energy, strength, and joy for too many days. Years.

LOOK for every tiny scrap of evidence to believe, trust and to keep hope real.

FIND the evidence. You will find it; because it's there.

God supplies it everywhere.

And many times what you find will be meaningful only to you.

I found mine this morning in a tiny trace of steam. It rose from a group of leaves that huddled tight together on the grass as if to ward off the frosty night. The steam rose beneath the warmth of the sun, and just like that I watched thaw happen. I watched thaw. And, "Jesus?" a trace of steam rose warm from my mouth because, really, is there any name more thawing, more warming, than the name of Jesus? A trace of steam rose and whispered, "The Son thaws, just as the sun is thawing now before your eyes."

The name of the Son, thaws...

cold shoulders,
stiff words,
emotions piled in chilly heaps,
thoughts huddled in bitter freeze and relationships that are like blocks of ice. 

The name of Son, thaws...

And I believe it and hope it and saw the evidence of it right in my own backyard.

Please practice pisteuo with me! We are changed when we live the gifts that God gives us.

A GIFT
A PISTEUO! BOOKMARK
FOR YOU

It's for you to print. I covered mine in clear contact paper to make it durable. Make pisteuo durable. It's a gift from God to last for the duration of your life, and mine.

PISTEUO!



 "Happy are the people whose God is the LORD!" (Psalm 144:15)

PISTEUO! Blessings!

Carolyn~Elizabeth



The Only Way I Know to Net Hope, is to Cast Faith

I stood on a chair in a raincoat with gloves cinched beneath elasticised cuffs and the hood pulled up and drawn beneath chin. I held a hiking boot in my hand just beneath a spider that looked too heavy to stay on the ceiling. Gravity would pull, and the spider would plop, and this would happen just before I whacked it in adrenaline rush. I had to sleep in the room, and that was not happening until I  smacked the spider right off the planet. 

I'm so much braver now than I was then. Two little boys later who, more than once, folded their soft hands around plump spider bodies whose legs wriggled free from between their fingers and, "Look Mommy!" and, yeah, I'm braver now. The boys are grown, and two daughters who never once held a spider beneath my nose are also nearly grown; and I'm all grown up, too! Well, nearly.

A spider was waiting at the door just smack dead center of its woven walls. I would have walked straight into it, but moon beam shone on web beams and like that, a pillar of light directed my path in the night.

I stood in the moon beam and watched. I just watched. The spider built so silently. I've never taken the time to watch this master home builder. Homemaker silent and graceful. Sometimes she spun fast in free fall, and other times she hung patiently and waited for a night breeze to blow her to an anchoring. She's a trusting homemaker. She trusts in the free fall and trusts in the slow wait.

It was beautiful and dangerous and convicting to me.

What would it feel like to trust God completely to catch me when I'm free falling; and what would it feel like to fear not the freeness of freedom? What would it feel like to trust God unwaveringly to complete what He began when stillness seems like an interruption of it; and what would it feel like to be moved not by my impulse, but by His?

Well, I wondered these things. I also wondered how to get past the spider because I had the kitchen trash to take out and the bag was getting heavy.

I waited till the spider was not dangling in the evening breeze, but securely back in her web. I swung the trash bag outward as far as my arm would reach just in case there was web I couldn't see. I slipped by, silent and quick and sideways like a trespasser afraid of getting caught. 

Raincoat and Boots

The neighbors are having their roof reshingled. I'm standing at the kitchen sink,watching the roofers rip up the old shingles and pound the new down. I watch with hands in hot suds, scouring last night's dinner from the skillet that soaked all night. I scrub while roofers rip, and we homemakers build loud. But last night's spider? Homemaker quietly productive and I'm sorry to say that I had to knock her home down after I scrubbed the skillet clean and while the roofers pounded. I had to. I did.

I had to because khaki-panted, polo-shirted daughter in choir uniform that truly isn't meant for girls to to be seen in, or for mothers to say things like, "You look cute," and sound sincere, had to get to the morning choir presentation at school. There was no time to sweet talk the spider, "Scootch on over a bit, please." The web went, and we went, and I wonder if I'll see the web again or if the spider relocates.

I go to sleep thinking about the kingdom of heaven. Maybe because there is a theme of homemaking lately and isn't heaven my home? It is. I'm just here right now, but heaven is my home. It's being built silently, patiently, gracefully, and doesn't scripture say that the kingdom of heaven so highly exalted is built for the children of God so lowly humbled?

I've been baited before. And bit. That's what spiders do. They cast out a line as bait, and then bite.

Life, too. Life baits, and bites; but that's okay. It really is, because somehow it's part of making a hope hunter out of me, and the only way I know to net hope is to cast faith.

I would have walked into the web and met spider face to face. But a moon beam cast light across the night and caught the web that would have netted me. "Well, thank You Lord!" He knows my spider story. "Remember?"

"I remember!" He wants to laugh; I just know He does.

"E-hem," I clear my throat. I didn't know as I stood in my raincoat that I was humbling myself. It felt more like an act of bravery for survival.

"Pride is cast down when cares are cast down." I get what He's saying.

I didn't know then that my spider story was a humorous beginning to my testimony of faith.  Didn't know what webs, what baited lines, what bites would hang at the door to my home. Didn't know that the spider extermination garb I donned then, would become something meaningful.

But it has. It has, because shouldn't we clothe ourselves for what we face and for what hangs over us? For battles, for victories, for mourning, and for joy? And shouldn't we know when to change what we put on? I'm not still wearing that ludicrous raincoat with a hiking boot over my hand. I'm not!

Yet, I wonder how long I've worn a spirit of heaviness till the Lord nearly peels it off because I won't change into the garment of praise? The garment of praise is for the spirit of heaviness. He tells me so in Isaiah 61:3.

I'm certain I've worn ash gray much longer than I needed. Sometimes I don't know when it's time to change out of ashes, because sometimes I forget that there is another color to wear. I wonder how often my Father has set out the beautiful and the oil of joy for me to wear come morning.

How often have I waken, put on the drab, and walked right past the beautiful garment of praise and the oil of joy that He carefully set out for me the night before?

I've been wearing the beautiful and the joy for sometime now. I choose to put them on, and as a new pair of clothes fits better as it's worn, so do these garments. They felt stiff at first, but not anymore.

I remember, though, the spirit of heaviness and the ashes. I can't breathe at night sometimes, when dreams bait me because, yeah, I've been bit. Sometimes I wake and my teeth hurt and my arms hug the air out of me till my chest hurts as if I can squeeze cares out of me by sheer strength. I can't.

What I can do is cast cares.

I still have a memory, but I cast cares on the One who cast a moon beam at the door because He cares for me.

Casting

I ache for the mother, father, and younger brother who are bleeding from the venomous bite of an abductor. Where is their daughter and sister? I ache because I've felt the weight of another variety of abduction and ashes are  made heavier for the tears.

Will the morning come?

It will.

The Father will carefully set out the beautiful garment of praise and the oil of joy. It seems disrespectful to say it, now, but joy does come in the morning.

I think about the faithful who have gone before us. They were imprisoned, scourged, stoned and I won't be delicate here because scripture says it point blank, sawn in two.

And I think, too, of those who loved them.

How did the mothers, fathers, siblings, wives and husbands of these faithful clothe their souls? How did they clothe themselves, those who loved? Those who cared deeply for loved ones who were bitten by the enemy; and torn apart by ragged teeth? How did they who watched and stammered prayers raw and simple ever change their garments? I must know, because the answer has everything to do with the questions, "Who do I trust? What do I believe?" and "What do I base my hope on?"
I must know, because hope based on anything less than evidence is as impotent as wishing on a star for good luck.

How did the faithful do it? Did they practice casting? I'm sure they did. The cast is for all cares. All.

And somehow the cares themselves get me to the humble.

It's humbling to wake up and untangle myself from my sheets; and it hurts to be humbled. The pain that wrapped me up during the night is humbling when morning comes and I hear, "Humble yourself and cast all your care upon Me, for I care for you" (1 Peter 5:6-7).

 "Cast all your cares on Me." He says it as I turn the wooden slatted blinds open. And there they are. Shadows cast down. Just cast down everywhere. Shadows cast like cares on the ground, on the fence, on the neighbor's roof top; because of light.

At high noon the light will be full and will erase shadows, because there are no shadows when the sun is right straight overhead. I'm going to watch it happen today. And at high noon I'm going to celebrate the absence of shadows because I'm casting them now and they will be swallowed whole by
the light.

"There is no shadow of turning with You, Lord." I'm grateful for this. Light still slants for me, because I'm still on this earth that spins while spiders spin.

But I am a child of light and my home is being built in heaven's light and His light is in me even now.

"I cast my cares, these cares, on You." And just by the saying of it, it's done.

"I've lifted them away," says the Light of the World.


written by:Carolyn-Elizabeth

Enough Faith For All The Dark Nights That Ever Have Been or Ever Will Be

I look up into the deep heights at night and remember the great cloud of witnesses surrounding me and cheering me on,"Run with endurance! Lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares! Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith!"

"Aw-w-w," I simply breath out the breath that God breathes right into me. A breath can be worship. Just a breath. I wonder if sometimes the most beautiful song to Him is one with no words, no melody, but a long inhale as if the worshipper is trying to breathe into lungs the beauty of God; and then a long exhale because His beauty is too much to hold in one breath. Is some of the greatest worship the kind that happens one breath at a time, hour by hour, day by day, year by year till one day the breath just exhales long and the next breath is the one breathed in the presence of Christ, face to face?

I just breathe out the breath God breathes into me, and it is worship. It's worship just beyond the reach of words and just beneath the vast night sky where galaxies burn in brightest in wide-eyed wonder.

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then this brown-eyed daughter of mine has a glowing soul. She stood on the stairs, an i-phone in hand and an eye-full of light because she found the stunning in a highly magnified photo that ignited worship within her soul before she knew it was worship.

"Mom, look!" She handed the i-phone to me. "Look!

I wasn't sure what I was looking at. A huge eye?

She showed me another, and another. "These are pictures of what the galaxies look like! Isn't it cool?"

"The galaxies? They look exactly like eyes! They're even shaped exactly like eyes! Just exactly!" Yeah, it's cool. "Look! Look!" Now I'm saying it.

"I know!" She says as we bump heads trying to look closer at the i-phone.

"You can see the pupil! And the little flecks of color in the iris! Look!"

She shows me another, and they all look like eyes, fitted in the sockets of the heavens.

And all I can think is, "For the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good."  I open my Bible because I can't remember where God says this about His eyes. I find it in Proverbs 15:3. "Look! Read this!"

We bump heads over the Bible, now. And amaze.

Wide-eyed Girl

We are soul struck, deeply and in stillness and wonder. It's a Selah moment. A moment of awe that sets a glow in the eyes because the soul is on fire just looking and seeing wide-opened and burning with a worship too intense for anything less than Selah.

Selah. No one has really defined what the word means. It's a pause; a "Stop for a moment and think about what you've just read" word that follows certain passages in Scripture. It's a word that doesn't happen by intellectual assent, but by spiritual ascension because Spirit to spirit is eye to eye. But isn't that part of the reverence of holy pauses? Isn't part of the reverence found in the worship that burns and rises and blazes like holy light right from the soul through the eyes to the one worshipped, as a soul response that happens before the Selah command is given?

I stand on the patio before tucking into bed and look up deeply and widely and searchingly. "I'm still looking, God;" I whisper into the darkness, and feel His presence.

"My eyes  run to and fro throughout the whole earth." He replies in a voice as soft as star hum.

I see a beautiful smattering of stars and hear God tell me again of the saints who have gone before me; of that great cloud of witnesses He tells about in Hebrews 12 who cheer me on in my Christian walk, "Run with endurance! Lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares! Look! Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith!"

"I'm looking, God. I'm looking." I can't see the galaxies, but maybe I'd fall over dead if I could.

I know I couldn't live to tell about the glory in God's eyes should He blink at me face to face while I'm in this body; and me thinks that though the galaxies are a mere image of the fire glory in God's eyes, it would be a glory beyond what this bit of me could see and live to tell about.  Maybe they are placed near enough to be magnified, photographed, and viewed on a screen, but far enough away to remain unseen by the naked eye because I would be slain by the glory.

"Truly, there is fire in Your eyes." I just stand looking up.

"My eyes are like a flame of fire. I hold seven stars in My right hand. My countenance is like the sun shining in its strength." He's speaking to me from somewhere in Revelations and the words are deep at this moment.

Seven Bougainvillia Stars

"Seven stars. Seven!" Isn't earth's sun a star? It is. And if I remember correctly, its not one of the large stars. "Seven in one hand." I amaze under my breath. I can't hold a spark, not even a spark, without being burned. I can't look straight into the sun without being blinded. "Yeah, God, those galaxies would knock me down dead."

"Yeah," He laughs under His breath. It is delightful to Him, I'm certain, when we have ludicrous Selah moments and state the obvious to Him because we're in wonder afresh over His greatness.

To me, the words, "Look"and "Selah" go together like body and soul. I gaze with both. There is the looking with the eyes in my head, and the looking with the eyes of my soul. I am affected by what fills my gaze.

I gaze at the one who spread the heavens with galaxies that look like the fire in His eyes.

I gaze at the one who gives faith so large that if I could see a complete picture of it, I would see a smear of stars called the Milky Way, or one galaxy magnified a greater number of times than I can count so that it may be seen on an i-phone screen as a single firey eye in two-hundred billion.

This is how I'm picturing faith.

 It's enough faith for all the dark nights that ever have been, or ever will be, experienced world wide.

And isn't that enough to keep hope strong through it all?


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth

PISTEUO! A GIFT FOR YOU...YES, FOR BEAUTIFUL YOU

I am filled with thankfulness for you. Just FILLED!

PISTEUO! It’s a gift from Scripture given 243 times from God’s heart to yours and mine. It's a three-in-one word, meaning “to believe, to trust, to hope.” 

 

It's pronounced “pist-yoo-o."

 

It's become my life word. I want to live the gift.

 

I've scribbled out  two books about how I am learning to live this gift. It's changing me, because aren't we changed when we live the gifts that God gives us?

 

 

If I could, I'd invite "Come on over, friend;" and I'd open my back door because that enters into the heart of my home. The living room.

And you'd curl all comfortable into the couch cushions and wriggle your toes there because in my home both couches and the easy chair have blankets tossed over their arms and we put our feet on the furniture.

I'd serve you something warm and sweet and fragrant in a mug with a large handle, and a glass of refreshing water. And this would be your time. Your turn.

You have given so much to me. You have read my ramblings. You have e-mailed the sweetest words to me. You have clicked the "like" button!

And I am overwhelmed with your generosity.

You have been on my mind for the past couple weeks. I haven't posted a blog because I've been thinking of gifts I can give to you...yes, to beautiful you.

In the cooler months, there would be warm scented candles, colorful rugs, and pillows and a fire in the fireplace.

The space would be lived-in comfortable with books and mugs and my well worn colorful cloth napkins crowding the top of the coffee table.

There would be a pile of informal shoes by the back door, and your coats and purses would rest on the chair there.

There would be flour and measuring cups on the kitchen counter and, today, there is a
Cranberry-Apple Crisp I've pulled fresh from the oven.

I made it with the wild Alaska cranberries my mother picked this autumn and mailed to me.

Today, this is my gift to you.

Cranberry-Apple Crisp

 

Take some unrushed time today.

 

Trust God with your schedule, and if you hear Him say, "Go ahead, make a Cranberry-Apple Crisp;" then do it.

 

I'm certain that God loves the fragrance of cranberries and apples in the autumn, and brown sugar mixed with oats and toasted pecans.

 

 

Live the gift today.

Live it full.

Live it slow.

 

Cranberry-Apple Crisp Recipe

Prep: 15 minutes

Bake: 30 minutes at 350

6-8 servings

 

Ingredients:

3 c. thinly sliced, tart apples

2 c. fresh or frozen (or wild) cranberries

1 c. sugar

3 TBS flour

 

Topping:

1-1/2 c. quick-cooking oats

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. brown sugar1/2 c. butter, melted

1/4 c. chopped pecans

 

Directions:

Combine the apples, cranberries, sugand and flour. Pour into a greased 11-in. x 7-in. baking dish. In a bowl, mix topping ingredients until crumbly; sprinkle over apple mixture. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, or until fruit is tender.

 

 

 

PISTEUO! Blessings!

 

Carolyn-Elizabeth

 

 

 

 

 



When You're Gulping Air till You Crash at Night

A large grasshopper hitched a ride to the high school on the hood of my van this morning. The hair brushing, breakfast eating, shoes-in-hand passenger noticed the hitcher at the stop light, between bites.

"Look at his feet!" I exclaimed because I've never seen a grasshopper this up close. He wore red shoes on long feet that flexed a slow peel off the hood and then rolled back down and stuck. One step taken with the hind right foot. Now the hind left, and it was a toe to heel flex and peel, lift and stick it down, heel to toe. Deliberate, slow, elegant.

The traffic light turned and grasshopper faced the wind, antennae spread wide, and feet suctioned immovable on the hood. And just like that he walked from home to the high school.

Shoes on her feet, the girl with fresh brushed hair walked up the steps to the school and I pulled out of the flow of cars because I had a grasshopper to drop off. I parked, and he turned to stare through the windshield right at me. He did! His eyes were red as his feet. We looked at each other a moment  before I opened the van door, climbed down from the driver's seat, and rounded the hood with the swagger of an officer about to issue a hitchhiking violation.

"Ok, this is where you get off." The grasshopper accepted my finger, and I placed him in the grass amazed that he had made it this far.

"Well," I reasoned to myself, "it's because of those feet."

"Exactly." The Lord must have been quiet in the backseat, and then moved up front to take the passenger seat while I lifted the hitcher off the hood.

I thought in silence about His response. Thought about feet. And tenacity. And walking slow and deliberate on feet that cling to what they're standing on. Sure-footed and sure of the destination until one leg of the journey ends and you are not where you thought you'd be. And somehow where you thought you'd be seems farther away than ever, but, gee, "I sure got here fast! How'd that happen?"

"Exactly," He reads my thoughts.

Red Running Shoes

That's where our conversation left off, yesterday. And where it's picking up again, today. Those sticky, flexing feet have me thinking about what I cling to. What I'm standing on and refusing to be blown off of even when the wind is forty-five miles an hour in my face. Forty-five miles an hour, antennae-splitting speed, and he seemed to enjoy it!

I know what I cling to for life. No matter what speed life flies at me. It's been tested at Autobahn speeds, and it's simply faith. Faith. And hope. And when there's wreckage, somehow I become even more alive just all tenacity to faith. It's because faith is becoming to me more of what it really is. It really is substance that I can cling to just as surely as that grasshopper clung to the hood of my van.

Faith is real when the rubber meets the road; and faith never crashes though life may screech metal on metal.

I think the grasshopper had some storm-chaser in his blood, and I relate. Someday I would enjoy riding shotgun in a rigged truck chasing an F5 tornado. It's my wild side. I doubt I'll ever be chasing tornadoes, but I cling to faith when life blows like one. So I track down faith.

I'm a faith-tracker, and storms just make it seem more urgent to take hold of faith and cling to it. It's real and substantial and can be held. It's what I read this morning, "I have set the Lord always before me...I shall not be moved" (Psalm 16:8).

I cling to the Lord with sticky feet. He is the Author and Finisher of my faith, and I'm finding rest in this. Rest in faith, and, "Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will rest in hope," the Psalm continues. It's true.

Stick to faith, and rest in hope.

I'm practicing. Daily. Hourly. I track down reasons that substantiate hope, and find that I can just rest in hope. I track down faith and become more aware of it. Of Him, the faithful One. And truly, living by faith is restful. It makes for gentleness, gladness, and peace. It changes the pace of life, inward and outward. It redeems time.

"You are showing me the path of life," I follow the verses in Psalm Sixteen. I'm resting in hope, and I feel it. I feel the restfulness.

"My yoke is easy and My burden is light," I hear the faithful One.

"I feel it, Lord." And I do. "I have more time, somehow." And I do.

I suppose I'm becoming less busy working to achieve what I hope for, and more occupied with just believing. I'm not burning rubber and skidding on faith in pursuit of hopes, and gulping the air that blasts through rolled down windows till I crash at night. I'm just breathing easy. It hasn't come easy, but through practice. I have practiced.

I didn't know I was practicing a new way of moving through life. I just knew I needed belief and trust. Needed faith that hope can depend upon; faith that doesn't dangle and swing mid-air and light as air, but that is sure and secured by the very nature of the One who is faithful. And I needed it like I needed the next breath if I was to take another sane breath in this life. And when I saw that grasshopper walk like he did right in front of my eyes, I knew it when I saw it.

Red Feet

I woke this morning a bit tangled up in sheets cast askew by dreams that tangled me up into the shape of a pretzel. So much for elegance. I'm still processing some things in the shadows.

I turned open the wood slatted blinds, because light chases shadows away. And there it was. Long shadow, cast down. Just cast on the ground, on the fence, on the neighbor's roof top. Cast down because of light.

"Oh," I just breathed.

"Mm-hmm," He breathed just behind me.

"And come high noon there will be no shadows at all." Because that's how it works with light. It casts shadows down and erases them. I'm going to watch it happen today.

"Cast all your cares on Me, for I care for you;" His morning tone embraced me.

"Graceful as a grasshopper," comes to mind. Silly thought left over from yesterday, but catchy. Well, it is for the likes of me. But I'm good with deliberate and slow. I'm okay with one day at a time. One step at a time. I'm the one who was chided playfully by her grandfather for how many times I wrote, "I can hardly wait for..." in the letters I sent him when I was a child.

But that was before I bonded with a grasshopper.


written by: Carolyn~Elizabeth

Manna Mamma of the Wilderness

I'm looking for the joy full and the glory full. I can't describe it, but  I know it's not what met me at the back door this morning. I kicked a snail from her home with the bottom of my bare heel. Crunch. Eviction. And she became homeless just like that.

I bent over to apologize and and found her nose to nose with the front end of a geko whose back half was caught between the door and the floorboard. I made my ammends to snail and gingerly took geko hand so tiny between my thumb and index finger. It dangled dead and where does one dispose of a dead geko? The garbage can is heartless. Well, what about where the zucchini used to live? Yes. Perfect. Geko and I pass the kale and, no, I don't find glory there either. A rabbit stripped it down bare sometime in the night.

"Remind me here, Lord. What did we just read this morning?" I stare at kale remains, the geko swings dead from my fingers, and I've just increased the homeless population.

"I have turned your mourning into dancing, and put off your sackcloth and clothed you with gladness, to the end that your glory may sing praise to Me and not be silent." He reminds me and the humor takes me. I try not to laugh. It seems irreverent at a time like this. But, "O Lord my-y Go-o-o-d," escapes my lips all laughter, "I will give thanks to You forever." I remember now what we read. It was Psalm Thirty.

The sun set in explosive fire last night. Cows yawn this morning, birds laugh, hawk circles, and Yellow Dog grins. Just grins everytime she opens her mouth. And once I step away from the back door and wash geko from my hands, it seems everything is dancing and praising.

I'm looking for what, earlier this morning, the Lord said is so. I'm looking for it on purpose. Looking for the sway, and the praise. And the hawk keeps circling, and leaves tango to their own music, and car motors slide modern with the radio on. It's street dancing, and I 'm waiting for a daughter who hops on one foot to keep balance while putting a sock on the other foot. It's all there. Here. I'm finding it everywhere. And surely there are many dances I don't see, praise I don't hear, yet. But I will.

I'm looking for joy and glory. Because I'm outgrowing the shell I've been living in and I invite joy to evict me from the curled up position. I want to stretch out on the back porch of glory, skipping the geko part. It feels a little daring to me to want this. I've just been curled up tight inside for so long.

Do I dare uncurl? Expose my belly soft? Do I dare open myself? Open my eyes sensitive and my soul kind of afraid? Is mourning over? Is it?

I believe it is. I've believed that before, at least enough to uncurl a little. But it was premature. And I knew it. I did. I just wanted it to be over so badly that I ignored the evidence that said, "It's not over, yet."

Snail

 But now? Consistent evidence is uncurling me. Faith-substance of things I hope for is stretching me. I'm yearning for the dancing. Reaching for the gladness. Extending my fingers palm up to hold the songs, and my vocal cords to sing them.

I'm listening for glory praise and if sunsets sing it, then surely I heard it last night. And why should the sun which is a "what" without a mouth, not a "who" with a mouth, sing out glory and set down with joy when I'm a "who" with a perfectly good mouth but am not using it to sing out glory and joy because I've set down silent? Why? Because I've set down like that and forgotten that even when life is overcast, I'm still a light in it. If only because God says so. It has nothing to do with what life looks like to me or whether things are sunny bright or not. It has everything to with Who life is and what He says about my place in it. In Him.

"I'm going to set out, and set down, singing, Lord. And not just in my closet." Yeah. I admit it. I sing in the closet. "And I'm going to dance, Lord. I'm going to dance-walk from room to room to the music that my German with Jewish blood in him loves to play." It's courageous declaration, and I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew. "Help me to respond to what we read this morning." I tag this on to the end, because I can't do it without His help. We're in this together.

I'm setting out to sing glory in the kitchen loud enough to be heard over the stove fan that clicks on because the onions are carmelizing into smoke that the vent can taste. I wave wooden spatula, sing some more, and add kale which pops kind of dangerously in the heat. I'm still singing while  measuring broth that pours sizzle into a burst of steam. I think I've just created my own weather pattern over my stove top. Spatula scrapes wood on cast iron and I'm still singing 'cause I'm daring it. I don't look to see who is within earshot, I hope the praising vegetables cover me, but I also hope not. Because I want to sing praise glory unapologetically even if it brings a cry from my fans.

But it doesn't. That's the thing. They don't object. Or judge. Or turn on the "real" music. No. They just do their homework, or whatever they were doing before this glory happened in the kitchen. And, sometimes they sing along. They do! And that's when my heart gives thanks, "Forever, God! Forever! I want this forever, just to sing with glory, to dance with joy, to give You thanks like this because I'm uncurling somewhere in-between because there's substance to it! I feel it!"

Praise God! Joy and glory are substantial. Real. Sturdy as cast iron and they can take the heat like cast iron. too. Because they are the fire in the sunset, the popping kale, the sizzling broth, the color of carmelized onion, and the cloud of steam that somehow draw me up to believe. Draw me up from snails and gekos before breakfast to "Yes, Lord! Gladly I will let joy evict me from shell" song by dinner time.

If anything in this kitchen gets passed down to my children, it'll be the cast iron. And faith that responds to what Jesus says is. They'll eat from it. They'll eat bread like the flat bread I fry on cast iron, and sometimes they'll look at what's in the pan and ask, "Manna?", because "manna" means "what is it." It won't be the first time they ask it. They're  probably asking it right now as they watch the cloud that's formed over the stove, hear the fan try to swallow it whole, and mamma singing in her apron that's embroidered, "Home is Where Your Mom Is." Yeah, the kids are asking, or maybe exclaiming concern, "Manna in the kitchen!"

Clouds and Rock

Thing is, our life story was written in the wilderness where Israelites reguarly watched a cloud form mysteriously in the day time and a fire swallow it in the night time over a desert hot enough to fry eggs on. This is the first place where the word, manna, is mentioned.

Imagine that.

I'd be asking "Manna?" about more than bread that is wafer thin and just materilizes on the ground and tastes like honey. I'd be saying, "Manna?" when bitter water was made sweet when a branch was tossed into it; and exclaiming "Manna!" when water gushed right out of a wounded rock; and I'd be known as the "Manna Mamma of the Wilderness."

I add meat to the pan. My story has been written. It's been passed down from the Israelites to me. To my husband. To my children.

And I know what the story is about. I do.

I read about it.

I'm living it. 


written by: Carolyn~Elizabeth

Looking for Reasons to Hope, Not for Ways to Survive

Shadows rest luxurious long this morning. Sleep in late on a bed of green while yellow dog sticks rump in air and nose in brush pile. Tail wags flag, and a slab of sunlight through slat of fence points the hour out across shadow that sleeps and sprawls across fence height and width like the German's limbs across the king-sized bed.

Yellow dog tail points straight attention and the Pointer in her shows till she looks like an arrow poised on three legs because the fourth is pointing to squirrel, of course. She darts full awake and oblivious to all that sleeps-in drowsy this side of fence. The back side. But this slab of sunlight persists like the illuminated hand on the face of the clock that hasn't heard the alarm yet. It stretches through slats from the other side; the side that's all awake and knocking at the gate, "Wake up, back there!"

Well, yellow dog belongs on the other side of the fence this morning  because we're just warming up back here. Just stretching off the night till shadows lift, and I sip coffee half-way down the mug.

A few leaves fall lazy. A web reaches long extension from lowest tree branch to highest eve and insects the color of air and size of dew just float uncaught by web,  but caught by sun. And caught, too, is a branch that fell out of the tree sometime last year and it's been straddling the limb that caught it ever since then. It just dangles there like Huckleberry Finn would straddle some limb in some tree and swing his legs happy and fearless.

It's quiet. I'm quiet. God is quiet. Yeah, yellow dog is galloping and grinning and I hear the neighbor shutting car door and motoring to work and somewhere from pecan woods an ax splits into echo. But it's quiet, still. I'm at peace.

College girl can't find her keys, so she borrows mine. And then I can't find her keys, so high-school junior girl has no way of getting to school. We're sharing cars. She's waiting and the second hand on the clock is wide-awake nervous jitter just all "Mississippi-one, Mississippi-two" count down till she's so late for first period that she might as well skip it. She does.

And I'm at peace.

That second hand can jitter like it's had too much coffee and it can just spring right off the face of time if it wants to, but I've just sipped long shadows from the back-side of time this morning.

And I'm filled with peace.

It's palpable, peace is. And this tardy junior feels it. It's like I fetched peace in the backyard and brought it inside like yellow dog fetches morning from the front-side of fence and brings it in. It's like that. I've fetched peace and junior girl sees it and just sets aside her book bag, retrieves the French Press and presses out gradual the Haitian coffee she smuggled from summer mission trip to Haiti. Yeah, she did. Right past the noses of the security dogs at customs. Maybe one day she'll smuggle Bibles and Haitian coffee is just practice.

Book Bag

Thing is, this morning is all about peace. Fetch it like a retriever and bring it inside because seconds tick off fast and this world is spinning and staggering and lurching on leash, but God's hand holds the reins and real time ticks out the beat of His heart, not mine and not the "60 Seconds News" channel.

I don't listen to it, the news. I admit it. Maybe I should, but I hear enough of it second and third hand to keep me glued to the "Eternal Edition," to know what's going on in God's heart and in the country I'm a citizen of. It's just that I need to keep Him and the news of His kingdom ever before me because one day there will be some who want to enter His country and to live in His eternal kingdom, but have let their heart beat in time with this world and they won't know what time it really is until it's too late.

It happens just an off beat here and there. Just an extra pump of the way life beats it out on this earth and there's prolapse of mitral valve in soul. I know what it feels like, because I have a mitral valve prolapse and surely there's connection between the anxiety my soul feels and when my heart beats extra.

Make the Good News both base line and bottom line and faith will pump it out grand and real. I must, lest my soul beat out what faith doesn't recognise. Lest soul beat out pragmatic, subtle counterfeit currency and I become like the many I'm warned about in Scripture. May I not sip at faith like I sip morning coffee just half-way down mug and say "yes" to be marked, indelible currency, and sell my faith for a loaf of bread. That's what pragmatism does. It reduces those who buy into it to sell themselves for a loaf of bread because they forget in a prolapsed moment that they were bought by the Bread.

I know I have a mitral valve prolapse. I may prolapse into pragmatism. It's deceptive, and I'm quite capable of becoming deceived. I am reminded of this every time I hear a preacher polish out how God doesn't want me to be uncomfortable and if I am, then it's not from Him.

Seems to me that faith isn't meant to be shiny, but well worn; and may I never question the faith of a brother who suffers disease, or who is caught in a long web, or languishes depressed, loses financial freedom, suffers injustice, injury, insanity. Because it's likely that those who suffer are the ones who actually do faith. Not just have it, but do it. Likely that those who bear the scars of doing faith are they who hope with every heart beat in the Bread whose heart hemorrhaged on the cross and sold Himself for their salvation. They never forget that bread doesn't come nicely wrapped up in the bread isle but from grain that falls into the ground and is ground up.

Miller's Stone

And it seems to me real faith rises up from places called, "into the ground," and then becomes ground on the miller's stone and here I say it in sanity and real, "You have overcome the world; overcome me!"

"I will make you as manna and many will say of you, "What is it?" The Miller grinds it like that and, well, that's fine because I'm looking for reasons to hope, not for ways to survive. Looking to gain a good testimony living faith out real because there's nothing counterfeit fake about the testimony of a faith that's been tried and tested and comes out hope full. And in His kingdom right here at the back-side of the backyard fence, and right now in Him in me, there are scars we bear and there is peace.

I am at peace. Just peace.

Because there is peace in faith that is tried and found real.

Peace in the absence of prolapse, exhaustive proclamations, counterfeit claims all aimed against the very trials meant to prove faith real.

I am at peace because I'm not looking desperate for ways to survive, but looking for reasons to hope and finding, "Faith is the evidence and substance of things hoped for but not seen" (paraphrase of Hebrews 11:1). I am at peace when I find this in the very trials and triumphs that validate my hope.

This is the real thing.

Nothing counterfeit.

Everything well worn up.

And I'm in it, waking up on the back-side and a little worn rough this morning; but in it like this just looking for reasons to hope.

And finding peace. 


written by: Carolyn~Elizabeth Roehrig